{"id":110840,"date":"2013-10-19T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T18:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=110840"},"modified":"2013-10-26T12:51:57","modified_gmt":"2013-10-26T07:21:57","slug":"rajapaksas-are-comfortable-with-me-rajpal-abeynayake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/rajapaksas-are-comfortable-with-me-rajpal-abeynayake\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajapaksas Are Comfortable With Me – Rajpal Abeynayake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor of the state owned Daily News Rajpal Abeynayake<\/a><\/span> has described himself as Sri Lanka\u2019s Rush Limbaugh in an interview with the New York Times newspaper which calls him a gushing admirer of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n

In an article entitled \u2018A Sri Lankan Journalist Eagerly Toes the Line<\/a><\/span>\u2019 the New York Times profiles the Daily News Editor as the most influential English language journalist in the country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rajpal<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI think, if I may say so, that they\u2019re comfortable with me,\u201d Abeynayake told the New York Times, referring to the governing Rajapaksa clan.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Abeynayake is unapologetic about violating what many see as a basic norm of journalism: giving both sides of a story,\u201d the newspaper says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a media that is far freer than that in the U.S., U.K. or the rest of the Western world,\u201d the newspaper quotes Abeynayake as saying in one of the many black-is-white statements he made in an hourlong interview. \u201cTake the invasion of Iraq. Can you tell me whether the U.S. media was against it, including your newspaper?\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason Sri Lanka needs state-owned and state-dominated news media, he said, is that otherwise the government\u2019s views would be ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cA coterie of privately owned media could bring down the government by manipulating the news,\u201d he said, \u201cand that doesn\u2019t do justice to those who elected them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newspaper says Abeynayake cites Noam Chomsky and the government shutdown in the United States to defend Sri Lanka\u2019s press restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot allow the freedom of the wild ass,\u201d he said, referring to the animal. \u201cAnd if media are manipulated to serve as the instrument of others\u2019 agendas \u2014 like imperialists or multinational corporations \u2014 you need to counter that,\u201d the Daily News Editor told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

Abeynayake also dismissed the international estimates of the war casualties, and he said many of the journalists killed were spies for the Tamil Tigers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were terrorists using journalism as a cover,\u201d he said. \u201cTerrorists get killed by governments, and, yes, that\u2019s O.K.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first stint as the editor of a government-owned newspaper, The Sunday Observer, ended in 2005 after just eight months when he wrote an editorial mildly disagreeing with President Rajapaksa, the report says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I wasn\u2019t sure how they\u2019d turn out,\u201d Mr. Abeynayake said of the Rajapaksa government. \u201cI was skeptical that these people could deliver. I wasn\u2019t very comfortable with them in 2005. Now, I\u2019m very comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Abeynayake noted that no Sri Lankan journalist had been killed since 2009, and he said that those who had fled the country were either working as agents of those countries or were looking for free tickets out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are economic migrants,\u201d he said, \u201cjust like these people who get on boats to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abeynayake told the New York Times that he and others at government-owned publications were no more constrained in their work than those at privately owned newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll journalists to a very great extent are forced to toe a certain line,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the end, you gravitate to a place where the management views are in consonance with yours. And I have gravitated to that place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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